After dinner, Coulson was hunched over the little desk, chewing on a pencil and scratching his head as he hurriedly finished Annie's homework. By now, Annie had already taken a bath and gone to bed. She wanted to turn in early tonight, so she'd handed the glorious task of doing her homework to Uncle Coulson, who'd lost a bet and had to pay up. Surely, this senior S.H.I.E.L.D. agent wouldn't let her down.
Actually, Annie's homework wasn't difficult for Coulson. The hard part was that he had to write it as if he were Annie! That meant he had to refer to her previous assignments while also imitating her handwriting, which made things rather troublesome. He had to write it all out once, then slowly copy it over again in Annie's handwriting. In short, it took quite a while.
Imitating handwriting was basic training for an agent. No matter how bad Coulson's technique was, he could still forge Annie's handwriting well enough to fool her strict teacher, Maine!
Doing Annie's homework for her was a little, well, not quite right! But it wasn't the first time, was it? As the saying went, the first time was hard, the second was easy! In any case, Coulson didn't want Annie to get in trouble for not turning in her homework and make him get called to school by Maine for the third time. That had been a truly awful experience!
Besides, Coulson was an agent. An agent's most basic duty was to do everything in his power to complete his mission! And his mission right now was to do Annie's homework! What? You were saying Coulson had violated his principles? That was terrible? Heh. You were talking about principles to an agent? What were principles, anyway? Could you eat them?
Just as Coulson was bent over his work, determined to complete the limited-time mission Annie had given him, Melinda walked over to his desk with a serious expression. She impatiently tapped the tabletop to let him know he could stop what he was doing.
"Melinda? What is it?" Coulson asked irritably.
Couldn't she see he was busy with something important? Why did she have to interrupt him right now? She'd completely derailed his train of thought. Where had he been? Oh, right! Grammar and sentence construction!
"Enough, stop writing! We've got a new assignment. Headquarters called. They've located Loki. He's in Germany. The director ordered us to leave at once, no delays!" As she spoke, Melinda went to the wall and opened a large painting. Behind it was a small armory, and she began choosing weapons and ammunition.
"They found him at last? That's great!" At the news about Loki, Coulson forgot all about the homework. He dropped his pencil and hurried over to check the gear they'd be taking with Melinda. "By the way, the other members of the Avengers have all been notified, right?"
Ordinary agents wouldn't be much use against Loki, the God of Mischief, and the minions he'd taken with him. Without the Avengers, any extra agents would just be throwing themselves into the meat grinder. A kill streak like that was no joke! So Coulson had to make sure. He didn't want to charge in, die twenty times, and get nothing done!
"Captain and Natasha have already left headquarters. Iron Man—Tony—is reportedly on his way, too. We're the only ones left!" Melinda clicked two pistols into the holsters at her lower back, then grabbed a few extra magazines.
"Oh! Good. Wait, what about Thor and Hulk?" Coulson thought something was off. Weren't two members of the Avengers still missing? Or had Melinda simply forgotten to mention them?
"We can't get in touch with Thor for now, but we've already sent agents to look for his girlfriend, Jane Foster. Once we find her, we should be able to find Thor!" Melinda had plenty of complaints about Thor. Honestly, would it kill him to carry a phone? Did all Asgardian communications rely on yelling?
"As for Hulk? Forget it. We can't count on him for now!"
That made sense! Coulson thought about it and agreed that the Hulk was a little unreliable. S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't even managed to find where he was staying. The guy was great at escaping prison and just as good at hiding. Otherwise, he wouldn't have kept the military tied up for so long back then!
For all they knew, he was hiding in some unmonitored part of the Lower City or in a cave somewhere. He'd never been one for rules or discipline, and he didn't like being told what to do. Even if they did manage to find him, there'd be no time to bring him to Germany.
"All right, enough about that. Let's get moving. Our plane's here." Melinda heard the sound of an aircraft engine outside. It seemed the New York Branch had sent a Quinjet to pick them up.
"Wait, this still doesn't add up! What about Annie? Aren't we taking her?" Coulson was baffled when Melinda pulled him toward the door. There was still an ace from the Avengers upstairs. He couldn't believe Melinda had forgotten her!
"But Annie's already asleep! It doesn't seem right to wake her now. Besides, we have Captain and Iron Man—Tony. The two of them should be able to handle Loki, right?" Melinda didn't really want to wake Annie. She'd seen the little girl asleep just before the mission came in. It really didn't feel right to wake her now.
"You have a point. In that case, let's go!" Coulson thought it over and agreed. So they wouldn't wake her, then? But after taking a few steps, he stopped. "No! I still think it'd be safer to wake Annie and bring her along."
With that, Coulson turned and headed upstairs. Captain was strong, sure, but strong in what way? He'd never seen it for himself, so he didn't want to jump to conclusions. Besides, surely Captain wasn't all that strong?
As for Iron Man—Tony? It was anyone's guess whether that playboy would even make it in time! And the one they had to deal with was Loki, who was called a god. Was someone with "god" in his title really that easy to handle?
So Coulson felt uneasy about going without Annie. In his eyes, Annie and one bear together were the equal of a whole company of Hulks. How could he leave such a powerful teammate behind? Even if the rest of them got into trouble, Annie could carry the whole team to victory! How awesome was that?
Knock! Knock! Knock!
In her sleep, Annie vaguely thought she heard someone knocking. Assuming she was dreaming, she didn't even open her eyes. She mumbled a couple of meaningless words, pulled the blanket over her head, and went back to hugging her teddy bear.
She was so tired tonight that she'd gone to bed early! She must have misheard. It was just a hallucination; no one had knocked at all! She refused to believe Uncle Coulson would come knocking to wake her up at a time like this. Whoever was outside was fake, an impostor! So she didn't need to pay any attention to him.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
"Annie? Are you asleep?" After waiting a while, Coulson knocked again, then asked softly. But there was still no response from inside the room! It seemed the little girl was really fast asleep.
"My God! Forget it, Coulson! We'd better get going. We're running out of time!" Melinda called from downstairs. She wasn't in favor of waking Annie. They already had Captain and Iron Man, didn't they? She thought that would be enough.
"Ah! All right, then. We'll have to go without her." Since he couldn't wake Annie, Coulson could only give up on his plan. What else could he do? Break down the door? If he did that, Little Bear Tibbers would tear him apart!
Unable to wake Annie, and with Melinda calling him from downstairs, Coulson had no choice but to nod and head down. He still felt uneasy, but there was nothing else he could do. At most, he could urge Iron Man—Tony—to hurry up once they were on the plane.
Master Annie! Miss Annie! My dearest little mistress! Are you really not going? Is that really a good idea?
Tibbers had heard the entire conversation downstairs from the very beginning, so he had no choice but to remind Annie through their Mind link!
...Shut up, Tibbers...
All right. But if you don't go, don't say I didn't warn you. I heard everything they said just now. It sounds like they found that guy Loki, the one they call the God of Mischief. He's apparently in a place called Germany.
Seeing that Annie still wasn't responding, Tibbers continued:
Oh, right! I also remember he's got a treasure called the Space Stone. Supposedly, it can open some kind of Space Gate? Tsk, tsk! I wonder if that's really true! If we can snatch it, maybe we can open a Space Gate to the Shadow Realm? This bear is feeling pretty nostalgic for home in the Shadow Realm~ Ah! Tibbers drew out the word "home" for emphasis.
Loki the God of Mischief... snatching things... snatching the Space Stone! A Space Gate? Going home!!!
At that, Annie's sleepy eyes flew wide open. She kicked off her blanket, leapt out of bed, and yanked open the curtains at the fastest speed of her life. Rising onto her toes, she leaned halfway out the window and called sweetly to the two outside, who were about to board the plane. "Uncle Coulson! Aunt Melinda! Wait for me! I'll get changed, just give me three minutes! Oh, no! Two minutes! I'll be right down!"
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